What's Happening in Character?

REALITY CHECK: During the past decades, the U.S. prison population skyrocketed, and so did the number of children experiencing the consequences of having a parent incarcerated. From just 1980 to 2000, the number of kids with a father in prison or jail rose by 500 percent.

Today more than five million children in the USA have a parent who is incarcerated.

The number of women in prison has also increased dramatically which poses a marked risk on children: incarcerated women are much more likely than their male counterparts to be primary caregivers of minor children at the time of their imprisonment. Derek Kreager, professor of sociology and criminology at Penn State points out: “Previous research indicates that if a mother becomes incarcerated, it increases the child’s risk of entry into the foster care system, which can further disrupt child well-being.”

I strongly suggest you watch Ava DuVernay’s powerful new documentary “13TH” about our broken prison system. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

America is home to 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the prison population.